Tenure

40. Kiernan

40

Kiernan

Apart from the deep, aching internal bruising, I feel like a million bucks. I’d basically woken up in a bathtub, and then he’d read to me about evolution until the water started to get cold.

I wander out into the main room in my towel. He’s talking on the phone with someone, but his eyes are glued to me, and I smile warmly at him before bending down to pick up my dress off the floor.

“Hang on just a sec,” he says into his phone. “What are you doing?” At me, this time.

“Um, getting dressed?”

“Why?”

“So you can take me home?”

“I’m not taking you home.”

“James, I should really get home.”

“ Kiernan, no you shouldn’t.”

I hear murmuring and realize the person on the other end of the line is saying something.

“No, I’m not calling you back, just hang on a minute,” he says to whoever it is.

I roll my eyes at him. “James. We’re going to get sick of each other at this rate.”

His face falls. “You’re sick of me?”

I could swear I hear laughing on the other end of the phone.

I roll my eyes. “No, I’m not sick of you. But don’t you think this is a bit much?”

“No,” he says. Zero hesitation.

I throw up my hands. “Fine! Can you at least find me a pair of sweatpants then? I’m cold and all of your fucking furniture is leather. My ass will stick to the seat!”

He grins at me and whips his joggers off and holds them out for me, and I have never felt so flabbergasted in all my life. James McGrath, world’s biggest dick—literally and figuratively—is standing in the middle of his living room in FULL Winnie the Pooh, just so I won’t be cold.

Maybe I didn’t imagine him saying I love you . . .

I shake off the thought and snatch them out of his hand, hopping awkwardly to pull them on.

“Wait for me in bed, baby. I’ll be in in a minute.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “Bed. For sleeping.”

He laughs and leans forward and kisses me sweetly. “Maybe.”

I grumble and waddle down the hall to his room, helping myself to one of his T-shirts and crawling under the covers. The sheets smell like him, and I feel my eyes closing, heavy, as I start to nod off.

I feel him slide into bed next me and try to open my eyes, but I can’t.

“You’re making me narcoleptic,” I mumble.

“Sleep, Kiernan.”

“If we really are gonna sleep, why did you want me to stay?”

“For your excellent company.”

“I’m good company when I’m sleeping?”

“You’re good company when you’re quiet.”

“I have to go home tomorrow.”

“Okay,” he says. He sounds like he’s humouring me.

“I mean it.”

“Okay.”

“James! I have to work.”

“Where do you work?”

“The Rogers Wireless store.”

“Cell phones?”

“Yes.”

He scoffs. “I’m way better.”

“I don’t disagree, but I still need to work.”

“Why?”

I roll over to face him and find him shirtless, still wearing his glasses, his book flat on his chest. I wince as my pussy clenches involuntarily at the sight of him, and he grins like he knows.

“Because I need the money.”

“Why do you need the money?”

“What the fuck do you mean why do I need the money? What do you pay for things with, James? Insults?”

He waits quietly, staring at me, like he genuinely wants to know.

“I used all my savings on your class. I don’t qualify for student loans because I’m still in high school and only in one course.”

“How much is the class?”

“Close to a grand.”

He frowns. “But you qualify for student loans for the summer semester?”

I blink, confused. “I’m not starting full-time in the summer, I’m starting in the fall.”

His brow furrows. “Why would you wait? If you take a full course load this summer and just stack your semesters. you can start your master’s by 2025.”

I groan, loudly, and flop onto my back, staring up at his ceiling. “That’s assuming I even take the challenge exams. And that I pass them. And that I pass all my senior-level courses with good enough grades to get in to a master’s program.”

“You will,” he says. No doubt. Not a question.

“I can’t afford to start school this summer. I need to work full-time. I need some money. And honestly, I feel like you’re a little biased since you’ve been balls deep in my mouth and my pussy already today.”

He levels me with a look. “Watch it, Kiernan.”

I raise my hands. “I’ve had my fill.”

“You have another hole, you know.”

My heart jumps into my throat as he stares me down, eyes hard, but then he relaxes a little and picks up a bookmark off his night table, closing his book and putting it down so he can roll over onto his side and face me.

“Take the challenges. Why waste money on classes you could pass with a test?”

I open my mouth, but he has a point, and he smirks at me like he knows it.

“I honestly don’t think I could pass them. I’m not just being modest here. I know I can learn it. But I don’t know this material, yet. How can I be expected to take a test on it?”

“I’ll teach you.”

I eye him warily. “Why do I feel like we won’t get much done?”

He grins and pokes me in the ribs under the covers.

“Ow!”

“I take math as seriously as I take sex. I’d be happy to spend all of my time doing both of those things with you.”

“Why?”

He levels me with a look. “You know why.”

He’s staring at me, that strange razor-sharp intensity on his face again, and I feel myself start to squirm.

“Fine. But I still have to go to work tomorrow.”

“Call in sick.”

“You’re a terrible fucking influence for the grown-up here!”

He grins. “Come to class with me instead.”

I pause, tempted and intrigued. “You don’t teach on Saturdays.”

I raise an eyebrow. “I don’t lecture on Saturdays. Have you been checking my schedule, Kiernan?”

I fidget. “No,” I mumble, annoyed, but he just keeps smiling.

“There’s an informal tutorial session for master’s students on Saturday mornings.”

“Do you purposely torture these students? Friday classes and Saturday tutorials?”

He shrugs, and I roll over, pulling the blanket over my head.

“Fine, I’ll call in sick. But you’re buying me breakfast because I’m too poor for campus bagels. And you’d better not ask me any fucking math questions in front of a bunch of master’s students.”

I hear him chuckle followed by the click of him turning off his lamp, and then his arm snakes around my waist as he pulls me closer to him, lips gliding along my neck.

My skin heats up and my nipples tighten, but I elbow him lightly.

“Don’t.”

“Why not,” he says against my skin.

“ I can’t. ”

He stops, and I can feel his wicked smile as his hand drifts towards my abdomen.

“ You can’t!” I squeak. But he shifts his hips, pressing his very amenable dick between my ass cheeks.

My heart starts to race as his fingers toy with the drawstring on my pants— his pants—but I flinch in earnest as my pussy clenches.

I reach down and touch his hand gently, turning my head to look over my shoulder at him.

“Please?” I beg. He looks at me for a minute, quiet, thinking, and then his fingers drop the strings, and he presses a kiss to my temple.

“Okay, baby. Sleep. We’ll get you broken in soon enough.”

And as painfully sore as I am, as much as I don’t want to admit it, I’m a teeny tiny bit disappointed.